Encore: S03 Ep. 14 - Anna and Chris’ Marital Betrayal

This week we’re in session with Anna and Chris, a young married couple who came to us after Anna, who is pregnant with their first child, discovered that Chris had been lying to her. We show them how to rebuild trust and avoid this kind of deception going forward. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should
Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice
column for the Atlantic.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted.
And this is Dear Therapists.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Each week we invite you into a real session where
we help people confront their biggest problems and then give
them actionable advice and hear about the changes they've made
in their lives.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
So sit back and welcome to today's session. This week,
we're in session with Anna and Chris, a young married
couple who came to us after Anna, who is pregnant
with their first child, discovered that Chris had been lying
to her.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
The thing that hurt me about it was when I
see tons and tons of messages to his younal co
worker and asking things like hollis your day. That was
really hurtful to me, because that's something he should be
asking his wife first.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
A quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only.
It is not constitute medical or psychological advice, and is
not a substitute for professional healthcare. Advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia
use it in partworn ful, and we may edit it
for length and clarity. In the sessions you'll hear. All
names have been changed for the privacy of our guests.

(01:19):
Hi Laurie, Hi guy. So what's in our mailbox today?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Today we have a letter about secrets in a marriage,
and here it is deotherapists. I am five months pregnant
with my first child, a time that should be flooded
with warm and bubbly emotions, junk food cravings, and trips
to the local baby clothing store. However, the past several
days have been filled with crippling anxiety and an emotional

(01:45):
pain I didn't know existed. You see, I recently found
out that Chris, my husband of one year, is a
pathological liar and, in my mind, an adulterer. Unbeknownst to me,
Chris had been meticulously hiding over twenty thousand dollars in
credit card debt. How he did this I still haven't
a clue, since we had multiple in depth conversations around

(02:07):
finances before and during our marriage. To make matters worse,
several charges to these credit cards were for an online
adult subscription website, the deepest cut of all. While he
claims he considered this to be only porn, in my
mind he had an affair. These charges were dated during
the months in which we were trying to conceive our child.

(02:29):
Despite everything, I love him deeply and desperately want this
to work. However, the emotional pain and betrayal I feel
is unbearable. I recently set strict boundaries with accountability and
set up our first couple's therapy appointment. But what if
this isn't enough? How on earth do I survive this? Sincerely, Anna, I.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Really feel for Anna because pregnancy is a time when
people often feel a heightened sense of wanting to feel
safe and protected, and there were things going on that
she didn't know about, and now she is feeling very unsafe,
and so I think this is really less about whether
it's money or infidelity and more about deception and honesty

(03:13):
in the marriage.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
I agree, and I'm really glad that today both of
them will be on the show because this is not
something that she can repair alone. They need to repair
it together, and they have a time concern because once
that baby comes, their hands are going to be full.
It's going to demand so much of their attention. They
really want to try and get in a better place
than they are right now, certainly, so it's really important

(03:38):
that they're both here today.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, so let's go talk to them and find out
what's going on. You're listening to Dear Therapists for my
Heart Radio. We'll be back after a short break.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
I'm Lori Gottlieb and I'm Guy Wench and this is
Dear Therapist.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Hi Anna, Hi Chris, Well, thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
For coming on our show.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Thanks for helping us.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
We wanted to start by hearing a little bit about
how long you've been together, how you met a little
bit of the history of the marriage.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah, so we've been married just over one year. We
have been together for I would say over three years now.
We actually met online, and up.

Speaker 5 (04:31):
Until marriage, our relationship was very good, very positive.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
I feel like it was very healthy. And then once
we got married, certain things kind of happened gradually that
started to affect our relationship.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
What kind of things started to happen.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
So I noticed that I would catch Chris in white
wise every now and then, and at first I just
disregarded that. I know that everyone tells a why at
some point and there why.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
What's an example of a white lie, what you call
a white line.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Just talking about social media? It'd be like, oh, who
are you talking to? And he would say someone that
he was not talking to and I would be like, Oh,
that's not what you said. Little things like that that
just kind of broke down trust very gradually.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Can I ask why you were asking him who he
was talking to? Did you suspect that maybe he was
talking to someone that he shouldn't be.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yes and no. At that point I trusted him, But
I feel like I have trust issues in general, and
so that voice in the back of my head was
always just wanting to get that confirmation.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Why was it that you only started asking once you
were married, but for the first three years of the
relationship those trust issues didn't really come up for you
in the same way, I.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Think, if I'm being perfectly honest, I think once we
were married, we were more comfortable with each other, and
that pressure of keeping the peace, I guess was gone,
and so I felt like I was more able to
ask those questions and put a little bit more pressure

(06:21):
on him in that way.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Chris, can you tell us about your perspective just about
the dating and the relationship, how it proceeded, and then
we can get to these exchanges at the beginning of
the marriage about the white lives.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
Yeah, dating started off long distance, and it was good.
Like with my company, I was able to travel on weekends,
and if I couldn't travel that weekend, then she would
come down and see me. And it worked really well.
And then I think just kind of as we got married,

(06:55):
I kind of lost a little bit of that I
wouldn't say spark, but it just lost a little bit
of the excitement of seeing each other on the weekends
or something to look forward to. And I got pretty
engrossed with work because COVID hit, and then it just
kind of seemed like a little bit of a downward
spiral around then.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
In what sense a downward spiral.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
I was working extra, so I was tired. Anna was
working extra, she was tired when we came home. It
wasn't like the fun, let's go on dates. It was
the hey, let's watch a TV show. And it kind
of a little bit got I would say, to the
point of like a daily regimen that was pretty repetitive.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Were you voicing any of that is that something you
brought up in conversation to Anna, saying, Hey, we're falling
into a bit of a rout here, let's shake things up.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
Not really. I've always been kind of a to myself
kind of person, like I had never sought therapy or
anything like that until just a couple of weeks ago
and we started doing all of our healing. I was
a pretty self internalized person, and I would go through
ebbs and flows of emotions of being frustrated and not

(08:12):
wanting to talk to her about it, but not really
talking to anybody about it.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Why not wanted to talk to Anna about it?

Speaker 4 (08:21):
I've kind of been a lone wolf for a pretty
majority of my life, and so talking to other people
about my problems was never really anything that I did.
My parents really don't talk to each other about their
problems either. They just kind of do their own thing.
So I guess a lot of it would be learned,

(08:42):
but just kind of what I was comfortable with.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
It's interesting that both of you were having these thoughts
and feelings that you weren't voicing to each other even
before the marriage. For you, Anna, you have this history
which would like to hear a little bit more about
about not trusting the person that you're with, And I
don't know, Chris, did you know that about her?

Speaker 4 (09:06):
I know that she's had some pretty rough relationships in
the past, Like there were passing conversations or comments that
kind of led to the understanding that there were a
little bit of trust issues, but I didn't think anything
really significant.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
So you were both afraid to show up for each other. Anna,
you didn't tell him that this is a big issue
for you. Yeah, for three years, and if you had suspicions,
you kind of said, well, I don't want to rock
the boat. And you, Chris, when things started to feel

(09:45):
a little bit repetitive or mundane and you missed the
excitement of earlier in the relationship, you didn't say to her, Hey,
this is how I'm feeling. What can we do? So
when you got married, was that the first time that
you were in the same city together or did you
have any time in the same city before you got married.

Speaker 4 (10:06):
We, at my request, moved in together right around when
we got engaged, which is about a year earlier. But
it was still kind of new and exciting, and we
hadn't really formed any of those patterns on the day
to day.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
And Chris, you said that you are a lone wolf.
But have you been in relationships before and is this
something that has happened in previous relationships where you feel
a certain either frustration or something's not going the way
you want, but you have trouble working with the person
you're with to figure it out.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
Yeah. I've had one serious relationship outside of Anna. It
lasts just over one year, and it was a pretty
unhealthy last six or seven months. It was constant arguments.
She would just find little things to argue about and
then just try to blow them up to see what

(11:04):
I would do.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Can you tell us what those sounded like? Those arguments?

Speaker 4 (11:07):
I mean anything from like a comment that I'd said,
or you know, if I missed a turn going somewhere.
I mean, you name it. We've argued about it all.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Did you end that relationship or did she?

Speaker 2 (11:19):
I did.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Did you try to talk to her about how criticized
you felt in the relationship?

Speaker 5 (11:25):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (11:25):
Yeah, I mean that was it was a constant conversation.
I pushed that relationship probably a little further than I
ought to have because it was my first serious relationship.
I wanted to grow the most that I could in
a relationship, so I would be ready for something serious

(11:47):
again after that relationship. And so I took it upon
myself to just try to be patient and understanding and
listen and just kind of grow some of those even
though it was in an unhealthy environment.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
So in that relationship, would you bring up that you
felt criticized and that you were concerned about the volume
of the criticism, or would you just respond when you
were criticized.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
I would bring it up outside of it on occasion,
but more often than not, it would end up leading
to another argument of some sort, and so I just
kind of stopped.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Was there anything that happened in your relationship with Anna,
even early on when things were exciting that you didn't
bring up because you were sort of trained not to,
or that if you did, it would lead to an argument.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
I would get upset at like stupid little things. But
I kind of just kept it to myself because I
figured it was more advantageous to learn how to live
with certain things. And that's something I still do that
I need to work on.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
I'm just curious about how you observed that when you
were growing up, You said that your parents never talked
about things, So what would you do with that as
a kid, and what was going on that you felt
they should be talking about.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
Oh, I feel like they should have talked about everything.
My dad was a construction worker, so he'd be gone
from five o'clock in the morning till seven or eight
o'clock at night every day, and then he'd come home
and it was basically the dad show. It's, you know,
do what he wants to do when he wants to
do it. My mom has used me as like a

(13:39):
crutch for complaining about things that she's unhappy with. I
feel like that those frustrations, for example, could have been
brought up to.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
My dad, so instead of talking directly to your dad,
she would talk to you.

Speaker 4 (13:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Did you ever say to her, Hey, I wish you'd
talk to dad about this instead of me.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
Sometimes? Definitely more, I'd say in the last couple of years.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
You were saying earlier that the instinct was not to
talk to Anna if there was something that was frustrating.
Did you notice that that was the same strategy your
mom had of just like deal with the frustrations or
find someone to vent them too, but not actually direct
them to the person that's causing them.

Speaker 4 (14:23):
A little bit like early on, I would talk to
my mom about it just to vent it out, because
that's you know, she used me I could. I felt
like I could talk to her and she would generally
give me some pretty decent wisdom, I would say, But
I felt like it was kind of like a do
as I say, not as I do type of thing.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
And I had mentioned these white lies that were going
on at the beginning of the marriage, and I was
curious about your take on that. What was going on
for you? What was that about for you?

Speaker 4 (14:57):
At least on our social media we it had kind
of like you're doing your thing, I'm doing my thing,
and it would just be like, you know who you
talked to you about, nobody or coworker or whatever.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yes, they were co workers, a lot of them were female.
And there were a couple of times where I went
through his messages and discovered a ton of messages with
a particular coworker, and so that was obviously not something
that was disclosed to me.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, and I didn't really think anything of it in
the moment as being inappropriate because it's just platonic conversation
with coworkers.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Ka He's saying. It was all platonic conversations. So is
there something that came up for you where you didn't
believe that, or do you have some philosophy that he
shouldn't be friends with women, which is something different from
him lying or deceiving you.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
I would say the thing that hurt me about it
was at this time, he was in training for his
new job and I barely heard from him, which is
understandable because they're very busy. However, when I see tons
and tons of messages to a female co worker who
he's in training with and asking things like house your day,

(16:24):
that was really hurtful to me because that's something he
should be asking his wife, you know, how's your day,
what's going on? And instead of asking me those things,
he was reaching out to his female co worker. And so,
while yes it was platonic technically for me, it was
still hurtful because it felt like there was some sort
of emotional void being filled by talking to her.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
And can you tell us a little bit about your
history with trust issues and when those first started coming
up in your life?

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, I would say it definitely started with my childhood
and in particular my mother. She had a very troubled
past of her own and didn't really have the tools
to be like a good mother. And she is very

(17:18):
dishonest and manipulative in a lot of ways. And there
was one particular instance where about ten years ago, she
basically spent my dad's retirement for one k and didn't
tell him, and he found out about it and they

(17:39):
were separated for a while because of it. And it's
just the fact that she wouldn't come forward and admit
it even after being caught. She just really has a
very big issue with being honest. And that's something that's
really really affected me.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
So both your mom and your husband spent money in
secret it? Yeah, can I ask cow old you are?

Speaker 3 (18:03):
I'm thirty two.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Okay, So this happened in your early twenties. Growing up,
you had a sense that she wasn't honest. Can you
talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Yeah, there was a lot that she hid from my dad.
For example, she would take us to the store and
you know, buy us ice cream or something, and she'd
be like, Okay, don't tell dad. There was one particular
instance where I got into trouble with my dad and
she said that she disagreed with him and that she

(18:34):
would have my back and talk to him, and when
it came down to it, she said nothing, and so
I was punished for it. Little things like that that
broke my trust even as a little kid.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
And then you also experienced some dishonesty in other relationships.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, there was one other relationship that was very toxic,
lasted on and off for about four and a half years.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
He was just.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Very dishonest. He would just constantly lie about everything. He
lied about being on the basketball team at school, he
ed about his family, He lighted about just how much
money he made, just everything he think of. He ed
about What.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Would you do when you discovered these lies? Would you
confront him?

Speaker 3 (19:26):
I did, and it did not go all. He would
essentially gaslight me and make me feel like it is crazy,
and you know, come up with some excuse and somehow
ended up putting the blame onto me, and it just
kind of made me go further into my shell a

(19:46):
little bit.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
When you first got together with Chris, what made you
feel like you could or could not trust him? How
did you feel going into that when it came to trust.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Originally I felt really good about it. I know he's
a good person. Even now, he's just a good guy.
He has a good book ethic, he has good morals,
he has a stronalogy with his family. You know, he
showed up and he using to show up. He called
and said he was going to call. All the things
said I've been looking for. He was it. And so yeah,

(20:18):
in the beginning, it is really good.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
Did he know about this history that you've had with
trust and especially the history with your mom and the
money of the four oh one K that she was spending.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
Probably not in detail, but I feel like I definitely
mentioned it at least.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
You know, a couple of times you said you had
conversations even before the marriage about finances and such. Tell
me about those conversations.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
We did premarital counseling. We just did of course that
was online, and we learned that it's really important to
talk our finances beforehand, and so we did. We talked
about what that looked like for us, and at that
time we decided to have one joint account and have
our separate bank accounts as well. And as time were

(21:05):
on throughout the marriage, I realized so that was probably
not the best decision.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
It wasn't the best decision because I.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
Think it allows for a lack of accountability, and I
think it in Chris's case where he has a problem
with spending, it's just enabling him.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
You say he has a problem with spending. Was that
something you knew about when you were dating.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
Yeah, a little bit. We always talked about, oh, I
need this, I need this, especially when it comes to
anything techie. He needs un speaker or something for his computer.
I would come over and see, Oh, like, I didn't
realize that you had this. Oh, I just thought it,
and so I knew that it was definitely different from

(21:52):
the way that I was, but I didn't see it
being a major issue.

Speaker 4 (21:56):
At that point.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
You say you noticed that he got something new, but
were you guys looking at the bills together every month?

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Basically we hated bills and through our joint account, and
then we each had our individual bank account separate. And
so his spending, which I found out later, was on
his individual account and his credit cards.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
How did you discover the credit card debt?

Speaker 3 (22:21):
So in the months prior to me finding out about
his finances, I felt that it was really important that
we merged finances completely. I just felt like we were
married and it was time to work together versus being
separate all the time, and I noticed more and more
hesitancy from him, and each time I would bring it

(22:43):
up and there was hesitancy. I felt like something was off.
So about a month ago, it was the week of
our one year anniversary, I said to him, Okay, if
you don't want to merge finances right now.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
It's okay.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
Just let me at least see your individual account so
I can help you budget because we were a little
bit tight and on the trinity we've currently and so
you know, we truly need to budget. And then he
completely rejects that.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Did you ever say to him, why are you not
wanting to merge our finances?

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, I definitely asked that question. We don't need to
do it right now, we can wait until later.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's not an answer to why, that's an answer to
what he wants. It's perfectly legitimate if somebody wants to wait,
but he's not explaining to you why he wants to wait.
And it sounds like you didn't follow up and say
I'm not understanding why this is.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
Yeah, because I've been in training with my new job,
I've been on a reduced pay, so it was nerve
wracking for me. One to get found and have my
financials exposed. But at the other side, it's like I
was nervous with our type budget as it was, because

(24:06):
I'm paying you a credit card off as well to
migrate everything from one bank account to another because I
didn't want something that it missed. And then all of
a sudden, We've got late fees on top of credit
card fees on top of bills. To me, it was
just very daunting. So my excuse was wait until I

(24:28):
get off my training pay and everything kind of settles out,
because it was just kind of like a financial rocky place.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
That was the reason you gave to her. Let me
get off the training pay. You didn't tell her the truth.
You told her a partial truth exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Chris. When did the spending start on your end with
this credit card that? What was your thinking about it,
given that you had had these conversations with Anna about
finances and she conveyed that she was concerned about it.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
Shortly after we got married, we bought a house, and
then I just kind of started buying things for the house,
buying things to go camping gas. I mean, you name it.
Some stuff I would tell her about, some stuff I
wouldn't hope she doesn't notice because they're maybe a little
more expensive.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
But what was your thinking that? Okay, I have this
deal with her about being responsible financially, but I'm going
to get these things anyway and hope she doesn't notice,
and then I'll cover them at some point.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
I really didn't give it a whole lot of thought.
I mean, I was covering my bills. I was covering
my portion of our utilities and mortgage and whatnot. So
I didn't really, in my mind presume it was much
of a problem other than you know, I'm on reduced pay,
so hey, things are getting tight. But I was still
covering my half of everything, So I just figured that,

(25:51):
you know, it's okay, I'll pay it off eventually.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
But you're aware that this has heard that as well, right.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
Yeah, yeah, I get that.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Now.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
In the time, my brain really wasn't thinking that way.
It was pretty selfish. It really wasn't putting her into
consideration at all.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
It seems like you've had this habit of overspending for
a long time, even before you met Anna.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
Yeah, it's been on and off over my adult life.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Do you remember when that started and do you have
any sense of what that's about.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
Oh, as soon as I moved out of my parents' house,
it was, hey, I can get things that my parents
maybe wouldn't let me get, or I can do whatever
I want, and there was really no accountability. And then
after the first time, I was probably eighteen or nineteen,
when my parents found out that I had spent two
or three thousand dollars, they bailed me out and I

(26:50):
paid them back basically just to get away from the
interest rates. And then, you know, six or seven years later,
same situation.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
When this happened twice, When your parents bailed you out
the first time and then they bailed you out a
second time, what were you thinking about in terms of
maybe I have a problem with this, or maybe this
is compensating for something that I don't have in my life.
Did you ever think I need to figure this out?
Did it wear you at all?

Speaker 4 (27:18):
Yeah, it was a thought in my mind, just you know, hey,
is this really a problem? Why am I reverting to
these kind of spinning habits? But I honestly just kind
of shrugged it off as just being young and impulsive
and there was something that was going to need to

(27:40):
grow out of.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Did your parents talk to you about it. Did they say,
what's going on here? This is the second time we
bailed you out.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
There was a little bit of a conversation there. It
was more of a disappointment and hey, what the heck
are you doing? Pull your head out and figure it out.
And that was pretty much the extent of it. It
was more of a hey, you screwed up, not a
why are you doing this? Can we help you?

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Anna? Did you know about these two incidents before you
got married?

Speaker 3 (28:13):
He had mentioned before that he had gotten into some
credit card debt at one point, and he didn't go
into detail about it.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Chris, you mentioned earlier when you were getting into credit
card debt after the first year of marriage, that you're
thinking about it was, well, you know, it's my stuff
and I'll deal with it. And you weren't thinking. You
said about the fact that actually you're creating that that's
shared equally with Anna, and that she doesn't even know
about this step that you're creating. And so you were

(28:43):
really in solo thinking rather than in partnership kind of thinking.
And I'm wondering in what other ways in early phases
of the marriage or even the relationship, were you too
much on a solo track rather than a true conship.
Whether that's something that characterized your thinking in other aspects

(29:04):
of the relationship, it.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
Seems like, yeah, it was more like and I'm dating
this person, not a we are one type of thing.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
You've said. The two options are we are separate people
or we are one. And I think that that's a
way of thinking about this that might make you feel
a little bit trapped because you are not one. Even
when you are married, you are still going to be
two separate people who happen to have a commitment to

(29:38):
each other, and part of that commitment is honesty, accountability.
But that doesn't mean that you're one person. And I
don't know where you got that message that somehow, when
you get married you are one. Do you have any
sense of that?

Speaker 4 (29:55):
Again, my representation of marriage, which are two completely separate
people that don't really talk to each other, really don't
express frustrations and feeling towards each other. It's just kind
of two people that cohabitate and raise kids. I don't

(30:16):
necessarily think it's we are one, but I definitely think
it's we are together.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
On everything, we're a team.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
In the last few months, i've really formed an understanding
of the team of marriage versus the representation that I've
grown up with.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
When I asked Chris whether the other aspects in the
relationship in which he was thinking as an individual rather
than as a member of a partnership you were not
in your head? What did you see in terms of
other aspects in which you weren't forming a full partnership,
but that Chris was still operating as a solo player.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
The sciences were a big one. Also, just little things
like he would have conversations with his mom about our
relationship that I felt wasn't appropriate. He would share things
like that that shouldn't be shared in my.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
Opinion, What kind of things was he sharing with her?

Speaker 3 (31:19):
There was one instance where he talked about my health
issues and those are very personal to me, and I
asked him not to share any with anyone, and he
shared with his mom.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Chris, that sounds so much like what your mom did
by talking to you instead of your father, knowing that
Anna didn't want that shared. Did you at the time
that you were talking to your mom think I really
shouldn't be telling my mom this, but I'm doing it
anyway because I need to.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
Or what was the thinking, So my mom is a nurse,
and so it kind of crossed my mom, like, Hey,
she doesn't want me to talk about this, but I'm concerned.
And this is the person that I go to to
talk about things i'm worried or concerned about who Growing up,

(32:12):
I've always been able to talk to her about medical
things on a very professional style level, and so when
she had issues medically, that's the person that I felt
like I could go talk to.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
I think the conversation that didn't happen was Anna, I
really love you and I care about you, and I'm
really anxious about this medical stuff that's going on with you,
and I feel like I don't have enough information for
me to know if I should be worried or not worried,
and I'd like to get a straight answer from someone
I trust. She might still have said no, but I

(32:44):
think what was missing was the emotional piece, was the
I'm so worried about you. I care about you. But
at least then Anna could know that you're worried and
could maybe find a way to get the information that
in a way that makes her comfort. Maybe it's not
from your mom, maybe it's a different person, but you
still get the information, So you see what happens when

(33:06):
you're not communicating what you're feeling with each other.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, I think another part that you learned from your
parents growing up was that even if you do talk
about something, if you disagree, I can't push back and say, actually,
this is something that's really troubling me. So this idea
that Laurie's saying, you can have that kind of discussion.
Is it clear to you even today that you can

(33:31):
have that kind of discussion that when you talk with Anna,
it's not just to hear her opinion and then okay,
I have to do that, but you get to push
back if something's important, to voice your side of things
in a very clear way.

Speaker 4 (33:45):
I would say that I'm clear about it and working
on expressing that when I feel it.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
So right now, Anna's pregnant and I'm wondering what that
has been like for both of you. Is this when
the spending on the porn sites all started or was
this going on before that?

Speaker 4 (34:09):
It was going on before.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Before you got married.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
It was kind of when we got married and we
moved in together, and our work takes us away, both
of us for a couple of days at a time,
I was feeling disconnected from our relationship when she's traveling
or when I'm traveling. When we come back from work,

(34:35):
it's we're both tired, we don't really want to talk
right away, And so I think that I was very
internalizing a lot of that in unhealthy ways.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
So again, this was something where you didn't say to her,
I'm feeling really disconnected when we're both away from each other.
Exactly did you both decide that you wanted to go
ahead and try to get pregnant at the same time
or how was this talked about.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
It was a conversation, quite a few conversations. We both
kind of decided like, hey, like we're ready to start
taking the next step and building a family.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
And what was it like finding out that you're pregnant?

Speaker 4 (35:15):
Well, first I thought there was something seriously wrong and happened.
She came outside yelling Chris, Chris, Chris and crying, and
then she showed me a pregnancy stick when she found out,
and we both just kind of sat there. I was
elated and excited. She was balling her eyes out.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Balling your eyes out because you were excited.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
Yeah, we had been trying for at that point about
six or seven months, there have been a lot of disappointment,
all of anxiety, and so to have that positive pregnancy
test was just very very special.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
How did you both deal with that period when you
were trying to get pregnant and it wasn't happening. That
can be incredibly stressful both talking about how you felt.

Speaker 4 (36:03):
No, not really.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
I was showing how emotional I was about it, and
Chris was just kind of internal these saying things, and
to me, it felt like he maybe didn't care about
it as much as I did, or it wasn't hurting
as much as I was. But I think he just
kept it inside.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
When you were feeling very strongly and you saw him
you thought not feeling as strongly. Did you ask him
how he's feeling? Did you express that you were feeling
very disappointed?

Speaker 3 (36:34):
I expressed how I was feeling. I don't think I
asked him how he was feeling, and that's something that
I should have done. I think I was just so
overwhelmed with emotions that I feel like I was being
selfish in that respect. I didn't ask him how he
was feeling.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
And Chris, was that the time that you were starting
to use porn? Because as it might have been related
to the stress that you were feeling.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
Yeah, I was trying to reassure Anna that, you know,
God has a plan and it's kind of how I've
always lived my life is God's got a plan for us,
and things happen when they're meant to happen. I may
not understand why things are the way they are, but
I feel like in retrospect down the road, they tend

(37:21):
to make more sense. I was trying to let her know, Hey,
you know, it didn't happen this month, but you know
God's got a plan and it's going to happen when
it's meant to happen for us. And then I felt
like that wasn't received. You know, she'd be very frustrated
looking back, understandably, but I felt like I was just

(37:45):
pushed off emotionally.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
This is why I pointed out that phrase that you
used we are one, because you're not one. And here's
an example of Anna feeling a certain way. She's feeling disappointment,
she's feeling anxiety. She's worried what if I never get pregnant?
What does this mean? She's futurizing the whole thing, and

(38:11):
she needs some support, and you're saying to her, God
has a plan, It'll all work out, which is very
different from how she was feeling. And at the same time,
she wasn't really inquiring about how you were feeling and
what was going on with you. So both of you
were in your own silos and feeling very isolated and

(38:32):
very alone and very disconnected as you're going through this
experience together. And that's layered on top of all of
the other stuff that we've been talking about that you're
bringing with you around your own histories, and so I
can see how you guys got further away from each
other instead of closer during this time that you weren't

(38:52):
able to offer the other person any kind of support
that you attempted to, but instead she heard that as
I am so alone here, my husband has no idea
what I am experiencing, and you're feeling like, well, I'm
trying to reassure her, but she's rejecting this.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
Yeah. And on top of that, when she was feeling
upset and her and alone, I was even pushed off
further because she would have a very short temper. She
obviously is hurting, and I could figure out how or
what I can do to help. I just felt like
I was kind of the problem.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
But Chris, do you see the connection between how your
reassurance to Anna, God has a plan and all work out.
It didn't land well with her, but it wasn't sufficient
for you either, because it didn't resolve your tension and
your distance that you felt. And do you see the
connection between those times and you turning to porn for

(39:57):
comfort or for distraction, because that happened at the same time.
I'm wondering if you can see your use of POM
as a way to manage emotions and manage frustrations and
manage distance.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
Yeah, it was like a kind of barrier from real life,
just kind of removing myself from a situation and you
being distracted.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
And that is much more likely to happen when you
don't know how else to deal with the situation.

Speaker 4 (40:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Can you tell Anna now how you were feeling during
that time.

Speaker 4 (40:33):
I felt like I was being pushed away by the
way that she was being frustrated. And the best way
I can describe it is very snappy and short, because
at the time we were also dealing with some of
other issues as far as our relationship with talking to
other people still.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Talking to other people still meaning what.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
Coworker from my old job, just talking to people online,
and I would turn into video games as well as
as finding some sort of like way to just kind
of get away from everything, and ended up snapchatting once. Right, rather,

(41:17):
I gave my snapchat out online and somebody had messaged
me back the next day. I just snapped them back
and said, Hey, I screwed up. I'm married. No, but
that definitely drove a big wedge in between us and
kind of really really kicked off the shortness with me.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
How did Anna find out about that? And then how
did you too try to repair the trust after that?

Speaker 4 (41:47):
We were camping and it was just on my phone
on Snapchat, She's like, hey, who is this person? And
we talked about it, but I didn't feel like she
was ever really able or willing to try and rebuild trust.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
You said you were just trying to move on. What
did that mean to you to move on when the
trust had been broken? And how did you imagine it
would get repaired? What did move on look like to you?

Speaker 4 (42:23):
Move on to me looked like, you know, understanding what
I had done wrong and removing that temptation and us
being able to kind of how we are now being
able to talk to each other about Hey, this is
why I'm frustrated you did this. Okay, well, I'm sorry.

(42:45):
Much healthier conversations, and I never felt like any of
those conversations were really willing to be had at the time.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
And when that happened, what did you need in order
to start to rebuild some trust with Chris?

Speaker 3 (43:07):
I think I needed the full truth, And at that
point it was hard to tell if I was getting
the full truth.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Why did you think you weren't getting the full truth?
Was he telling part of the story and you had
to keep asking follow up questions?

Speaker 3 (43:23):
Yeah, yeah, I kept having to kind of dig deeper
and like, okay, you know, explain this a little bit
more because it's not making sense. Also paired with the
fact that in previous times it's been the same thing
where I feel like I have to pull it out
of him in order to get the full truth.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Tell Chris right now what you would have needed at
the time.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
I needed you to come forward before getting caught and
let me know, Hey, I messed up and this is
what happened. Since that was not the case after the fact,
I needed to do to fully own what you did
and ask me how it made me feel, because it

(44:08):
was incredibly hurtful, and at that point we had just
gotten married, and you know, it was devastating for me.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
So when Chris is saying I tried to book about
it and see how she felt, but she didn't want
to have the conversation, I'm confused about how that played out.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
I wanted to have the conversation, but I don't feel
like he was going about it the right way. In
my mind, it didn't seem like he really wanted to
take accountability for what had happened. I think he wanted
to just move on and for me to forgive him
and everything to go back to normal.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
So the subtext that you heard when he's asking you
what's going on and how you're feeling is let's just
check the box here and just get they okay, Yeah,
things are fine, so I can take myself out of
the doghouse. You didn't feel that it was since enough.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Yeah, I also needed him to just be patient with me,
because it's a process to move on from something like
that doesn't happen overnight. When I needed time, I needed
time to heal from it well.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
You voicing that that you needed more time.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Probably not in a great way. I was very angry,
and I probably was very short tempered and didn't ask
it in the right way.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
I imagined that finding this out when you're newly married
must have brought up all kinds of questions for you,
specially given your history around trust. And then there had
been that earlier incident as well, And it sounds like

(45:52):
Chris wasn't asking about what this was like for you,
or wasn't very curious about it, probably because he was
scared and knew he had messed up and didn't want
it to have any catastrophic consequences for your marriage. Is
that right, Chris? And yet what happened was in order

(46:13):
to kind of protect the marriage, Chris, in your mind,
you ended up weakening the marriage because now Anna's walking
around feeling like you're not interested in my experience of this.
I am alone in all of these questions that I have.
Is our marriage going to make it? How do I
protect myself from this happening again? Can I ever trust

(46:35):
you again? What does this mean for us? We just
got married, and I have a feeling that until this
was discovered again with the debt and the porn that
it just kind of got swept under the rug that
this hasn't really been discussed. So what we want to

(46:57):
help you with today is how not to do that now.
And I think one conversation that we haven't had yet
today is this idea that you both might have different ideas.
So you don't have different ideas about honesty, Chris, you
haven't been able to uphold your own value around honesty, right, yeah,

(47:17):
but I think you might have different ideas about what
constitutes cheating or betrayal, for example, talking to that coworker
and saying, how is your day? If it truly was platonic?
And Chris, You'll have to be honest with us about this.
Was it truly platonic or was there maybe something going
on there?

Speaker 4 (47:36):
Looking backwards, I could have been using it as an
emotional crutch to feel validated because we weren't effectively communicating.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
And in terms of porn, Anna, you said, I consider
that infidelity not everybody does, and what matters is what
it means to the two of you. Can you both
talk about your feelings about what it means to be
in this relationship where you're not betraying the other person.

(48:06):
What are the boundaries? Have you ever had a real
specific conversation about that.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
We did recently, and we agreed that for right now,
porn would have to go completely.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
You say we agreed, and that's sort of an action,
But in terms of just how you both view what
it means to not betray your partner, what it means
to be loyal to your partner, it sounds like, Anna,
you have this idea that using porn is infidelity, and

(48:44):
Chris might not have that idea.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
I think for me, the point where it reached infidelity
in my mind was the only fans piece you do
subscribe to these women, and that felt more personal to me.
Maybe it wasn't completely being unfaithful, but I certainly don't
feel like it was being faithful in our marriage.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
It makes you uncomfortable, Yeah, and Chris, I have a
question fore you when and it says, yeah, we agreed
that the porn has to go. I just want to
check in with you. If you truly agree the poorn
has to go, that's one thing. If you don't truly agree,
but you just agreed to it, then that's when you're
still going to have the impulse to do it, and
you're going to have the impulst to do it when

(49:31):
you're feeling disconnected or when you're feeling a distance. So
I just want to get a sense of how much
you're on board with that.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
I'm full on board with it. I really don't actually
need this. I can talk to her if I'm frustrated.
There's so many other ways to go about it rather
than trying to fill some sort of void with porn.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
When you were on social media with that coworker and
you were saying, how's your and Anna said, I just
wanted him to ask me that. Do you know why
you weren't asking that?

Speaker 4 (50:06):
I think that I would every once in a while,
but I feel like at the time there was a
lot of disconnect between us that that had just built
up over time.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
And so when you feel disconnected, instead of coming closer,
you retreat, Yeah, instead of saying that we're disconnected. So
I want to see Anna, how are you? Let's reconnect
you go somewhere else.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
I agree, And I think that we both kind of
do the same thing because it's like, I know when
she's feeling disconnected, I feel like she's very much pushing
me off, or like trying to push me away.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
That's not when she saydn't disconnected, that's when she's feeding hood. Yeah,
those are very different. Yeah, you are correct.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
When she's feeling disconnected, it sounds like she tries to
come toward you and then she doesn't get that and
then she feels hurt and then she retreats. And when
you are feeling disconnected, do you feel rejected? Do you
feel hurt? What do you feel?

Speaker 4 (51:06):
I feel rejected for sure, and just lonely.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
So you each are able to love one another because
we do get the sense that you love one another,
and yet you can each really hurt one another, and
you have not yet developed adequate tools to come to
would one another in those moments, to have discussions that
bring you closer, that breach the gap, and instead what

(51:36):
happens is something that typically makes you feel worse, each
of you in your own way.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
Today, I have no problems with it at all. I
feel like since I've been ousted for financial spending in
my debt, that kind of broke down all of the
barriers that I have as far as constly trying to
hide things. It's miserable. We've saw a marriage counselor that

(52:07):
has been very good. I've also saw personal counseling that
helps me kind of deal with that. But I feel
like where we're at today, I have absolutely no problem
telling Anna, hey, you know, I'm feeling disconnected today, or hey,
you know, I'm just in an off mood and i'm
quiet today.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Okay, that's good to hear. Anna. For you, though, since
you're dealing with mistrust at this time still, it might
feel even scarier than to be truly vulnerable and to
open up, because that's a trusting act to say to someone,
here's what I'm feeling, and here's where I'm hurting. So
where are you with that today?

Speaker 3 (52:47):
I always say I'm trying really hard to be vulnerable
and to you know, be open and trust that he
is working on things and that he is willing to change.
It's still is hard. I'm still very hurt and it's
still raw, and you know, I'm also pregnant, and so
I have all these emotions and they get the best

(53:11):
of me, you know, every time and then, but I
would say I am trying to overcome that.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Do you feel that this time, as opposed to the
other times, that Chris is being fully accountable for deceiving
you and for the dishonesty I do.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
We have merched finances and so we both have access
to seeing everything that's going on. I have all of
his passwords. We are bringing a baby into the world,
and that has impacted him as well, and he knows
if I'm very serious, if the pattern of dishonesty and
deception continues, he will lose me as his wife and

(53:55):
that will change the time he gets to spend with
his daughter as well. So yeah, I mean, at this
point I do trust that he is serious about it,
but it's still hard.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
What do you think you need from him in order
to rebuild the trust in a way that eventually, because
it's going to take time, eventually feels solid to you.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
I think the most important thing for me is when
he messes up, because you will, because no one is perfect.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
What does that mean he messed us up? How do
you imagine if he looks up worn, or if he
spends you know more than he knows that he should
without talking to me first something like that.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
It would be very helpful if he came to me
first before me finding out and saying, hey, I messed up.
This is what happened. Because that to me is so
so crucial. It's not waiting to get caught, to be
honest and do the right thing.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Thinking about is that Dynamica happens with his parents where
he went to them and said twice I messed up
to the tune of several thousand dollars and they said,
we will bail you out. And I wonder, Chris, if
you imagine that if you go to Anna and say, hey,
I messed up, that she's going to be like your

(55:20):
parents and say, okay, well you know, I'll let it slide.
I'll be mad at you and it'll be unpleasant, but
nothing's really fundamentally going to change. And I wonder if
you really understand what the differences between what you've done
in the past when you've messed up, and what you
might do now in this adult marriage.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
I think I do. I mean, there's a lot writing on.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
My honesty right. But what I'm talking about is that
when you were honest with your parents, they bailed you out,
and so far Anna's bailed you out to her or
she's discovered things. But either way, what she's saying is
I need you to come to me. But I think

(56:07):
she's saying something more, which is not just I need
you to come to me, but that I'm not necessarily
going to bail you out.

Speaker 4 (56:17):
Yeah, and you know she hasn't really necessarily bailed me out.
Well she's here, Yeah, you know, I don't expect her
to ever stay if any of this stuff continues, because
that's a lot to deal with from her perspective.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
So what are you going to do to find healthier
ways to deal with these feelings of disconnection or loneliness
that won't be so harmful to your marriage.

Speaker 4 (56:43):
I'm trying to be more present in my actions right now,
not so passive and just like reacting how I react,
but like being conscious of how I'm reacting to things
and how I'm feeling in the moments, trying to hold
myself accountable.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
How do you both feel at this point in the
conversation about where you are with trust and all of
the changes that are about to happen, and being able
to come closer together as opposed to farther apart.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
I feel hopeful. It does concern me that in a
few months where going to be having a baby, and
there are a lot of stressors that come with that,
but I am hopeful we just need to keep reminding
each other to have those conversations.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Do you see your role in holding back as well?

Speaker 4 (57:38):
I do.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
I think I'm still struggling a little bit with all
these emotions and feeling very hurt, and it's hard for
me still to open up and be vulnerable. But I
do feel like I can do that now.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
Can you tell him right now what all these emotions are.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
I feel very very hurt by you. I feel the trade.
I feel like the vowels that Lee said on our
loving day weren't as important to you as they were
to me. I'm very anxious and sad.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
I think the main theme here that encapsulates all of
that is I don't feel safe. Yeah, Chris, what was
going on for you as she was saying this? What
goes on in your body when you hear this from her?

Speaker 4 (58:37):
It was heartbreaking?

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Say more about that.

Speaker 4 (58:40):
I want to, you know, be able to lean into
hers as she needs to be able to lean into me.
It's hurtful to know that I'm not a person that
she can feel comfortable talking to about things.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
And I expressed a lot of concerns for the future.
Could you respond to hann now and some response to
the wardies that she has to her.

Speaker 4 (59:10):
I think that your concerns are completely valid. I've completely
broken your trust multiple times and retreated from you when
I'm hurting. I'm trying very very hard to be present
and take steps to rebuild the trust that I've broken

(59:35):
because I want to build a safe place for you.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
Are you hurting right now? You said you retreat when
you're hurting. Are you hurting right now a little bit?
Can you tell Anna about how you're hurting?

Speaker 4 (59:51):
It's just hard to hear that I've hurt you.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Are you hurting also because you feel lonely?

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
Not right now?

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
To talking about this makes you feel less lonely.

Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
Yeah, it's really relieving being able to to talk to
about it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Really tell me what the tears are about.

Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
It's just a release of emotion. It's just hard, you know,
knowing that I've done these things to hurt her, and
you know it hurts to hear it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
I think the tears might also be related to what
you said about It's a relief to be able to
talk about this.

Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
Oh, it's a huge relief. When I told her about
the fifteen thousand dollars in credit card debt. Being able
to talk about it, like, I feel one hundred times
better than I ever did trying to hide what I
was doing, just because it's like it's out there, and
that was like a huge pressure relief was taken off

(01:01:01):
by expressing those things I was hiding.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
You know, Chris, it's so important to remember this because
this is how you feel after you open up. This
is how you feel after you're completely honest. You feel connected.
Oh yeah, you feel hurt, but you feel connected. And
the default that you have is to run away and
increase the disconnection. And this feels very scary before you

(01:01:27):
do it. This feels like this is going to make
things worse. It's counterintuitive. It feels like owning what I
really did and taking responsibility and really talking about that
directly will just inflame. But this is what allows you
to feel connected, and it's super important that you remember that.
As painful as it is, it's the connection that you want. Yeah,

(01:01:50):
and this is what helps Chris feel connected. What helps
you feel connected, what's the most connected that you feel
when you're talking, has to happen that helps you feel
what Chris is feeling right now.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
I think just coming to me and expressing how he
feels saying, you know, I'm sad or I'm hurt because
of so and so. Just hearing him express his emotions like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
That right now, are you feeling more connected to him
as he's expressing these emotions. Yeah, Chris Andnana, we have
some advice for you. The first part is we'd like
you to have a monthly finance meeting. Find that time,
put it in the schedule every month. Shouldn't take that

(01:02:42):
long just to go over the bills. You should discuss
a dollar amount above which you consult with one another
before spending it below which you have the autonomy to
do that. You might consider creating a budget together in
that meeting so that you have even more accountability on finances.
But if you have a monthly touch point on finances,

(01:03:03):
which has been a sore spot, then you know you'll
spend in can't get two out of control, Chris and
and you'll have more eyes on what's going on, and
it'll just create a certain regularity. So we'd like you
to put that into the schedule and have the first
one of those.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
This week, and this way too. It becomes a partnership
that you're working together on the finances. That it's not
one or the other or doing things separately and without
the other's knowledge. The second thing is, we would like
you to schedule a weekly feelings meeting. And I know
that does not sound necessarily appealing to people who don't
like to talk about their feelings, but we want it

(01:03:37):
to be really fun and there's a structure to it,
and it goes like this. You have thirty minutes total,
so it will not go over thirty minutes because you
will be very busy and you won't have time, and
we want this to be something that feels realistic. You
set a timer for five minutes. You flip a coin
to see who goes first, and what you do in
those five minutes. The person who goes first is you

(01:03:59):
share where anything about your inner experience from that week
that you would like the other person to know. It
could be about the relationship, like when you did that
it made me feel this, or I really liked when
you did that that made me feel so good, or
this thing is happening at work and I'm really stressed
about it, or this is my reaction to the baby
and I'm having trouble with parenting. Could be anything that's

(01:04:22):
your five minutes. During that five minutes, the other person
is listening. They are not talking, they are taking in
this is the other person's experience, even if it's different
from mine. And then set a timer for five minutes.
Person gets to respond. How can you support that person?
How do you want to respond to that person in
a loving way that feels connecting for both of you.

(01:04:46):
Next five minutes the other person who didn't get to talk,
it's to talk about their inner experience, and then you
switch again. You can do this just the once where
each person gets their chance. So that's five five five
five talking, listening, talking, listen, or you might want to
keep repeating it through the thirty minutes, but at thirty
minutes it's over, and hopefully you're talking about your feelings
during the week too. But this makes sure that things

(01:05:10):
don't get swept under the rug. If someone's feeling disconnected,
they're not like, oh well, we're so busy, or the
other person's stressed and I don't want to bring it up,
and you should do it over. If you like having
a glass of wine, if you like having dessert, if
you want to take a walk, it should be fun
and something that you both look forward to like a
relief from everything else that's going on during the week.

(01:05:30):
We get to come together and get support from each
other and be together as a couple.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Try very hard, Chris, especially not thoughts feelings, So make
sure you're talking about actual feelings, not thoughts, because those
are different. And the last thing we'd like you to
do is you'd like you to come up with a
constitution of your marriage. And what that means is we'd
like each of you to sit down and write a

(01:05:55):
list of things. We have two parts. Number one, what
I expect of you, Chris, you would write Anna as
my husband, and then after that, what my expectation of
myself is as your wife. And we want you to
do each of those separately and then come together again
this week and read them to one another. That's the constitution,

(01:06:18):
and give real thought to it, because this is the
bedrock on which you'll be building the foundation. So make
sure it's a bedrock that really speaks to you and
that you've covered what you need and it's foundational.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
And one of the reasons we want you to do
that is because many people come into marriage and they
don't talk about what their expectations are for the marriage.
They use old models, they use fantasy, they use all
kinds of things, and they never actually discuss with each
other what do we want our marriage to look like,
what do we expect from each other, and what do
we expect from ourselves. And so when you have that,

(01:06:52):
it provides both accountability and transparency.

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
Sounds good, Yeah, and I kind of agree to you.
It's like we didn't have those kind of talks and
it was just kind of winging it in the marriage,
and there was really no expectation of how this is
going to go. And we've both been modeled to very
different kinds of things for marriage, and.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
You're going to create your own unique experience of what
you want your constitution to look like. And it should
be a fun activity to really think about and do together. Exciting.
It's looking toward the future. It's looking toward what we
can be together, and this is what our expectations are
in order to build that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
Yeah, so we look forward to hearing how this goes
for you guys this week. That's really good.

Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
Sure, Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
You know what's interesting with christ and Anna is that
it's very clear that they care for each other, but
there are some basic foundational aspects to their relationship that
they never quite figured out, and that's what the task
is before them now.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Yeah, And I think that these issues that have come up,
not only in this relationship but in earlier relationships are
things that sometimes people don't talk about and that come
out once they're married. And I think that even though
this is so distressing and painful to go through, the
silver lining here is that it is forcing them to

(01:08:23):
really consider what is the stuff we're bringing from our
history into this relationship and what can we do to
create the kind of relationship that we didn't have before
but that we want mutually. And I'm so excited to
see what they do with the Constitution because I think
that these are the conversations that many people need to
have that they never do until something forces it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
Absolutely. I ask so many couples whether they've had that
conversation about setting expectations, What are the understandings they have
about what their marriage should be and how it should
be different from what they've seen around them. Very few
couples have that conversation, and.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
I think it's important that they're doing that at the
same time that they're repairing this rupture, because it will
really make them sit down and think very deeply about
what they want and how to move forward.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
You're listening to DA Therapists. We'll be back after a
short break.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
So, guy, we heard back from Anna and Chris and
let's hear how things went for them this week.

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
Hey, Guan Laurie, we just wanted to check back in
with you guys after working on our assignments. That's such
you now everything's going.

Speaker 5 (01:09:42):
So we have been doing the weekly feelings check ins.
We feel like they were going very well. So it's
been really nice that we are both able to talk
uninterrupted about how a situation made us feel. We can
do like we've been heard and we can use that
to spark positive in constructive conversations. We also have incorporated

(01:10:05):
those feelings check in into our most recent couple therapy session.
I had a really positive discussion about how an argument
that we had earlier that morning affected both of us,
and I feel like that went really well.

Speaker 4 (01:10:19):
It's also been nice because it's allowed us to both
feel like we've been heard and it's just been sparking
really good conversation. We've also been doing the monthly financial meetings.
Those are going really well. We've continued to discuss our
boundaries and reevaluate them on a weekly basis. We currently
have a whiteboard that we've set up in our living
room and that allows us to show our monthly obligations

(01:10:43):
and allow us to visualize and discuss what we both
have going on. So we were both a part of
a single conversation instead of two separate parts, and so
we're both on the same page about everything that's going
on financially.

Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
As far as the constitutions for our marriage, so we've
been working on those. We both do want the main
theme of this to be better together and just really
show how working as a team is just better in
so many ways.

Speaker 4 (01:11:16):
We just want to let you guys know that we
really appreciate everything you guys have done to help us,
and we're going to incorporate a lot of that stuff
into our everyday life and set up some really good
foundational conversations that we're able to continue.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
What I really liked about that from an overview perspective
is that these tasks were incorporated, as they said, into
all kinds of aspects of their lives. They bought it
into the couple's therapy. They have a whiteboard in the
living room. They have these regular meetings set up, and
so they're really trying to change their perspective on what

(01:11:53):
their marriage is and what their couplehood is. And I
love the theme they came up with Better Together as
a guide for the constitution that they're working on.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
I think it's great that they're finally communicating because both
of them had come into this relationship and this marriage
with patterns around avoidance. So when he would get into
debt when he was younger, things weren't really spoken about
and he would try to self soothe in these other ways.
And I think with her, she also didn't know how
to have these conversations. So I think they did quite

(01:12:25):
a bit. They really started opening up the lines of
communication around finances, around their feelings, around what is our marriage.
And I hope that when they continue to work on
the constitution, that's going to take them even deeper with
the communication and also with the accountability.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Just one thing I want to highlight is sometimes we
make points with couples that they really need to make
a course correction, and we don't often say what the
size of the correction needs to be, but sometimes it
needs to be big and when I'm hearing that they
went from having the secretive credit card debt where things
are all handled in private and in secret, to whiteboard

(01:13:03):
in living room. That's a big correction. So that also
is very heartening to me because when you really get
that you need to make a big change, and you
both get it and you're both doing it, it's a
positive sign.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
And putting it in the living room where you can't
really avoid it, so it's not like, oh, it's this
file somewhere and we're never going to look at it.
They're really saying, we are putting this right down in
the open, so we cannot be in denial about this.
We are going to put everything there where we both
can see it, and there are going to be no
secrets anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
And I agree with you about the constitution. It's a
work in progress, and I really hope that the principle
of these changes will stay with them, which is we
have to be a partnership.

Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
And part of that too is how do we resolve conflicts.
I loved hearing that they were able to use the
feelings exercise to then bring that into the couple's therapy
and then be able to talk about an argument that
they had and both feel like that was a really
productive conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
For our listeners. That is something you can do as
well when you find yourself getting into conflict. Pausing to
express and listen without interruption to what the feelings are
that are coming up for each person can be a
very positive way to redirect the conversation into being more productive.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
When we think about what was going on here, there
was this deceit, there was this betrayal, But really what
it is is there are lots of unexpressed feelings that
got people into a situation in the first place, and
so I'm really glad they're dealing with what they actually
need to deal with going forward.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
Next week, we're checking in with Lauren, who came to
us feeling a lot of shame around her lack of
sexual experience, to hear how she's doing. One year later,
I actually met someone.

Speaker 6 (01:14:53):
I met a guy who I really really liked, and
for the first time in my life, I was able
to actually tell this guy what I like, to bottom
what I didn't like. You know, if he did something
I didn't like, I brought it to his attention in
a gentle way, out like pointing the finger. He actually
appreciated how I communicated with them.

Speaker 1 (01:15:13):
If you're enjoying our podcast, don't forget to subscribe for
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Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
email us at Lauri and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.
Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited
by Josh Fisher. Additional editing support by Helena Rosen, John Washington,
and Zachary Fisher. Our interns are Ben Bernstein, Emily Gutierrez,

(01:15:50):
and Silva Lifton and special thanks to our podcast fairy
Godmother Katie Curic. You can't wait to see you at
our next session. Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio

Speaker 4 (01:16:05):
Fish Food